Upgrading a MacBook to SSD

Freakitchen · 21 Jan 2012 at 23:45

I'd like to increase the longevity of my late-2008 Unibody Macbook by upgrading the hard drive to an SSD. Got a couple of questions:

Do I have to pay attention to the type of SSD I buy? Will my generation of MacBook support the fastest speeds (SATA 3?)? Wouldn't want to buy an expensive drive if I won't see the benefit.

I was also wondering what's the smallest sized drive I could get away with. I don't really store anything on the computer since iTunes Match, but would 64GB be just too small?

My final question is about how best to get Lion installed on the new hard drive. This computer was upgraded from Snow Leopard (and Leopard before that!) so I don't think it has the recovery partition on it.

Cheers all.

QwaF · 21 Jan 2012 at 23:58

SATA3 didn't get released till 2009 iirc, so your 2008 MB won't support that.

Freakitchen · 22 Jan 2012 at 11:31

Does that mean I could install a SATA 3 HD, but not see the speed benefit over a SATA 2 drive? Or that it wouldn't recognise the SATA 3 disc at all?

Obviously if it won't do SATA 3 speeds, I may as well just buy a cheaper SATA 2 disc, but thought I'd check first!

IndieSchmindie · 22 Jan 2012 at 11:49

Yeah a SATA 3 will work fine, you just won't get better speeds than a SATA 2 one.

If you are considering upgrading in the future, or there's a chance you might pull the drive and put it in another machine that has SATA 3 you might as well get the SATA 3, but if not or you want to save money just get SATA 2.

Type_R · 22 Jan 2012 at 15:23

Might as well get a SATA3 for future use!

Enable TRIM using TRIM enabler or the like, makes a noticeable difference to speed!

Freakitchen · 21 Jul 2012 at 19:54

Picking this back up, didn't upgrade at the time but seems prices have come down significantly since January!

Would something like this do the trick? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-000-SD

What is TRIM and do I need to enable it manually?

bloodiedathame · 21 Jul 2012 at 20:44

M4s and 830s are usually recommended for OSX but it's probably fine. Have a read up on TRIM, I forget what real world use it has but I didn't see much point leaving it off, as it can lengthen the life of the drive and increase R/W speeds.

Doug · 21 Jul 2012 at 20:45

I wouldn't have a SanDisk if it were free :eek:

(I'd sell it

)

The Samsung on this week only is one of the better choices if 120GB is going to be enough.

I had a first generation Vertex 120GB in mine for an age (and moved it over to my 2011 MBP), and it was more than fast enough.